Fallout: A Neon Dawn
by PartyPat22
Summary: A second battle rages for Hoover Dam, pitting an imperialist bureaucracy against a slaver army ruled by an ailing god-king, whilst a mechanical genius and businessman plots to forge a future for the remnants of humanity. Under the regional powers' looming shadows, a once-simple courier, steeped in the knowledge of the past and present, holds the will and power to fulfill his vision
1. Chapter 1: Dust and Chlorine

July 1st, 2282 Anno Domini, 6:34 AM

Private Jack Smith brushed past another of the "elite" troopers that had showed up within the last few months on his way into the mess hall. " _Another pompous ass that won't move for anyone enlisted and even wears their sunglasses inside."_ The private walked over to his usual table while muttering a colorful curse under his breath involving finding one's manners in the smellier end of a brahmin, then pulled out a chair and plopped onto it with a creak next to his friends, CPL Andrews and PFC Hernandez.

They had already gotten their meals, early breakfasts of nearly fresh brahmin milk and molerat bacon over mashed potatoes. It smelled great, tasted bland, and got them through the day; between the last part and their good fortune to not be assigned a scant two meals of brunch and late dinner due to shortages, they had little to complain about.

Hernandez looked up from his food and greeted Jack with a smirk under his greasy mustache: "'Morning "Ace", up for a hand or two again tonight?" Andrews chuckled next to him, causing Smith to turn the slightest shade of pink. He had been spared the Mojave sun ever since his assignment to the Hoover Dam garrison.

Jack quickly regained his composure. "I've had a bit of a dry-spell lately, but my luck will pick back up soon, just you wait."

Hernandez met his cocky gaze and replied: "I hope so for your sake, or I'll end up owning all your spare socks, and maybe your lucky knife too."

"Keep dreaming Guillermo, I've killed two legionnaires with this knife, and I'll kill a dozen more before we get sent to vacation at New Arroyo."

Andrews chimed in: "That toothpick?! As if... Where did you say you were deployed before this again? Shady Sands?" The corporal grinned as he saw their newest squadmate's wounded pride turn to anger.

Ace's tone took on a chill, cold as the grave. "Searchlight, before the attack." His friends paled, turning a shade of off-white after that before he continued: "Can you believe those assholes that Lee brought in lately? Their fancy guns and bandanas aren't impressing anybody."

Hernandez nodded in agreement, glad to change the subject. "Some of 'um have that ranger armor too, built like the old pre-boom 'shroom suits. All we get is cheap leather and sheet metal, probably made by dumb-ass Super Mutants in the Old Town part of the Hub."

The clatter of stomping boots preceded the arrival of their sergeant, Matthews, who walked purposefully up to their table, his unibrow creased in annoyance, or perhaps dread. "Quit your bitchin' and listen up. I've got a bad feeling about today and I want you all no more than a foot from your rifles. Magazines loaded, helmets on."

The three nodded in the affirmative before Smith spoke up: "Gotcha' sir, but I'm sure it will be another dull day. If those inbred legionnaires try to take the dam, I'll show them all how much good a machete is 'gainst a hot 5.56 to the face."

"Just keep your head down and try not to shit yourself, private. Things don't look like business as usual topside. No gambling on duty, either. The civvy engineers might be getting paid to waste time sitting on their asses, but you fine examples of the worst the NCR can produce are not." The sergeant walked away before "Ace" could make any other smart-ass remarks. When he was out of earshot, Smith started to ask Andrews if the sarge' really had the unibrow to cover up a scar from being born with a mutated third-eye, but a blaring alarm pierced his eardrums.

He clammed up, looking across the table to Hernandez' concerned expression, then past it to the table-full of elites picking up their rifles and scarfing down what was left on their metal trays as they stood-up. "Think this is another drill?"

Andrews shook his head and hammered a nail through Smith's naive hopes, "You heard Matthews. You can take the rest of my plate if you'd like, I've had my fill. Long day ahead of us."

Hernandez put a hand on Jack's shoulder, looking him in the eyes. "We'll be alright, Ace. Just shoot anything red and stay low." Smith nodded while gulping down his fear.

The LT marched into the room and scanned around for his men. He barked out an order in a youthful baritone, "5th platoon, topside, through the visitor's center."

Andrews wasted no time getting up, "That's us." Smith stared at the floor as he followed behind him, intense dread pinning his gaze like gravity. Guillermo let out a quick snort behind him, followed by spitting out a glob of grease that would've landed him cleaning duty in the mess for a solid week under normal circumstances.

"Hope it's cloudy today. Ah, who am I kidding? Only clouds we'll get are dust and chlorine."

* * *

NCRA troopers stood side by side behind sandbags, under sheet-metal roofs held up by stacks of yet more sandbags. A massive log fort obscured the way to safety a few hundred feet behind them, pockmarked by cross-shaped openings and large gaps jutting with machine gun barrels.

Mortars continued to whistle up over the rocks in the distance, crashing down around, behind, and in-front of them with pops and puffs of foggy smoke that grew to envelop everything in sight in brief seconds, obscuring the sounds of those that sailed harmlessly over the sides of the dam, splashing far below. The constant bombardment had already claimed a casualty, an asthmatic volunteer who had to be rushed below to the infirmary. Most of the men posted around him considered him lucky to be away from the coming battle, or highly unlucky if this turned out to be another false-alarm. Smoke and probing attacks went hand-in-hand, and those who had been on guard duty the last time it had happened weren't too worried. The fission battery-powered spotlights on the nearest intake tower and atop the timber fort were unable to cut through the dense, opaque mist, their beams of light outshone by the sun cresting the far ridges.

The minefield along the eastern approach to the dam exploded into life through the haze, sending clouds of shrapnel high into the air, tearing through bodies unseen by the soldiers on guard. Distant screams raised the hairs on more than a few of the troopers' necks. The mortar shells continued to sail overhead, but otherwise a silence reigned after the initial explosions. One trooper spoke up to alleviate the tension, "'Guess it was just another probe." Long ropes made with the fibers of agave and yucca plants, knotted around several stones each at one end, were hurled onto the ground and top of the dam, detonating low-yield fragmentation mines. With paths cleared through the stretch that promised of certain demise, ground cursed by dark gods according to the superstitions of tribals, the attackers pressed on. Past the mines, careless feet pressed down upon trip-wires, setting off fire bottles filled with ethanol and metal fragments intended as shrapnel, hidden amongst piles of refuse and stones. The shelling intensified following the brief bursts of flame and death.

The forward post shouted back unintelligible information over the din of sailing and landing shells for a bit, before opening fire with the distinctive chatter of their service rifles. Dull muzzle flashes illuminated the thick smoke despite the rising sun cresting the ridges ahead and overhead of the amassed riflemen. The soldiers on the very frontline fired at every moving silhouette that came their way, stopping only to reload.

A lull came about in the firing, as the shaded figures stopped shuffling and running towards the defenses. The sky, obscured by a bank of man-made fog, was finally free of falling light artillery, allowing an eerie silence to settle over the frontline. Winds wafted up from the flowing waters below, cutting past the ancient stone walls of the canyon and thinning the blanket of haze enough to see just a few more feet ahead. More humanoid-shapes began shambling or sprinting at the poorly trained troopers with arms raised high. Armalite-pattern rifles and emplaced machine guns on bipods spewed death into the shadows of the moving crowd, until one of the troops let a shaded figure get close enough to see what his target looked like, and froze.

The stinging stench of gunpowder filled his nose and his stomach lurched sickeningly as he stared down his sights at a starving man in soiled grey rags. A cold sweat broke out along the back of the soldier's neck; the gaunt old man had tribal markings covering his face, a metal collar around his neck propped up by knobby shoulders, and tears streaming freely down his sunken cheeks as he stared ahead at the rifles bellowing out his fate. To the volunteer's left, another service rifle roared to life and cut down the feeble old man mid-stride before he could reach their fortifications. "They're civilians! Cease-fire! CEASE-FIRE!" the soldier screamed, choking up as he realized the implications of what he had done.

A sergeant ran by and barked right behind their ears: "Bomb-collars privates! These people are already dead either way! If they get to us, we'll be dead too! You wanna' learn what your insides look like from shrapnel, or do you want to pull those triggers and put these sorry sons of bitches out of their misery!?" The troopers replied with their fingers after a brief moment, firing their rifles in a subdued, half-hearted stagger of noise and unenthused death.

They aimed for the heads of their hapless targets, hoping to give them mercy as painlessly as possible, but missing their marks half the time and leaving old women, old men, and almost healthy young men with permanent scowls of hatred and defiance in their eyes to bleed to death from their throats, mouthes, and chests. One such man flinched when a round impacted upon the collar around his neck before leaping over the side headfirst. Men and women alike screamed, sobbed, stood in shock like molerats before the beam of a flashlight, collapsed to the concrete in despair, cursed at Caesar or their gods, shouted for help, pleaded not to be shot, played dead in the thick man-made fog, or simply hesitated, fearful to turn back and be tortured with whips, spears, torches, and machetes like the examples made before the charge, yet realizing that their torturers' promises of safety and freedom did not truly await them on the other side of the dam.

The gunfire didn't let up for a solid few minutes as the troops' arms shook, mental exhaustion and disbelief weighing far more than their rifles. The mortars started whistling through the air again momentarily, but ended abruptly, restoring the opaque wall of smoke where it had begun to fade. More people ran half-heartedly and stumbled disoriented through the haze towards them, deathsquads just like those of Chairmen Cheng so long ago, in the history books the Desert Rangers brought with them to unification.

Some of the men coughed through their face-wraps, some had donned old gasmasks with tubes running down below their chins, and others endured the choking mixture of gunpowder, shame, and grey clouds unaided. Their targets, their victims, became a bit more varied; bruised and scarred young and near-middle-aged women with the front of their shirts torn open, the remnants of red 'x's crossing their ragged clothes barely remaining. Sickly young men with dark hollows around their eyes and dog-tags dangling over their collars, worn-out NCRA uniforms hanging from their malnourished bodies. Blood-splattered lunatics with matted hair and greasy, unkempt beards, attacking their doomed fellows with glee upon their faces, pock-marked by years of chem-use, as they rushed to their deaths.

Some had nails strung around their collars with wire or rope, some had knives or short clubs in their hands, and others held onto live grenades that burst with smoke as their grips slackened with the coming of their deaths. The continuous volley of high-velocity rounds finally ceased after a few agonizingly long minutes, then a simultaneous beeping was prelude to a crescendo of small explosions throughout the smoke along the eastern end of the dam. Bits of blood-soaked brain, steel fragments, and nails tore into sandbags, exposed flesh, leather, cloth, and the insides of many of those unlucky enough to be caught at the front of the fortifications.

The bravest among the second line mantled sandbags and ran under scrap roofing dented by mortar shells to reach wounded comrades and drag them back to safety, or man machine guns that had been disused since their operators had realized their targets and sought to conserve ammo. The sounds of mortars filled the air once again, but instead of mildly harmful smoke, deadly mustard gas spewed forth from finned metal canisters.

Those without gasmasks, or with the misfortune to have one that wasn't on properly or simply wasn't functional, began to scream and cry out in anguish. Covering their faces with goggles, facewraps, rags, or simply their bare hands, in vain attempts to diminish the pain, they ran for the safety of the dam's interior, behind the wooden fortress that divided the dam. Young conscripts and volunteers coughed, choked, and vomited as tears leaked out of their stinging eyes. Most of them died before they could reach it, sputtering and wheezing on their backs or curled up on their sides. The only solace granted to them as their lungs all but burst in their chests was the cloudless dawn sky. A temporary retreat was called for all those without proper gasmasks, and several veteran rangers mustered outside of their timber-built checkpoint. Soldiers ran for their lives through the doors of the intake towers, barely surviving, their red faces akin to the blood-shot ones of their fallen brothers-in-arms.

The masked troopers marched forward, bolstered by their elite allies to reclaim every inch before Caesar's playthings could set foot upon any of it. The yellow clouds lingered long enough for the men to begin hauling corpses away and checking the gear of the fallen for use. The sinking toxic clouds cleared briefly, falling like a curtain of yellow feathers to concentrate around the defenders' feet, allowing the rising sun to nearly blind them. Another barrage came from over the rocky canyon walls, once more a batch of smoke that filled the air around them.

Muffled barking and snarling reached their ears within moments as the runts, old, lame, and sickly of the Legion's mongrels and dogs of those breeds unfit for training limped or sprinted through the dense fog-like vapors. Adorning the starving hounds, covered in patches of burnt or still-burning fur from torches and wet spots that had pooled out around the tips of spears, were a myriad of bomb-collars, wire-meshes with nails and broken blades arrayed about them, and often-studded saddle-bags full of IEDs in bottles and cans.

Machine guns unleashed streams of half-melted steel rounds, mass-produced by the Gun Runners, Hub merchants, New Arroyo's workshops, Junktown's ammo presses, the Shi, or some insignificant reloading company. Regardless of manufacture, the result was the same; .308 rounds tore through dogs and human corpses alike, impacting the top of the ancient dam only to crumple like paper. Those troops that had made it to safety earlier began trickling back into position in cautious jogs. Service rifles joined in once again, catching most of the dogs before they could reach the barricades.

The few that made it through, driven onward by fear, hunger, pain, and the shrill sub-sonic screeching of dog-whistles leapt for the throats of soldiers, snapped at their legs, or kept running past the smoke and muzzle flashes. Many of the hounds turned tail and ran back towards their tormentors, only to be shot from behind like so many retreating soldiers in wars throughout history, or impaled upon spears held ready by a phalanx-like section of legionaries. Volatile explosives carried by the enraged and panicked beasts burst upon impact with the floor or a stray round, releasing flames, fragments, and death atop the surface of the dam, often amidst the entrenched troopers; the legionary handlers had only strapped packs upon the backs of those able to run. The stench of piss, shit, singed fur, and blood mingled with the harsh vapors of gunsmoke and haze as the smoke began to clear once more.

* * *

Jack Smith mustered outside of the Hoover Dam Visitor Center with the rest of his squad in front of the LT, Sergeant Matthews, and the remainder of the platoon. Mortars whistled a shrill melody off in the distance on the far side of the dam, and service rifles joined in, creating a constant, steady drumbeat, drowning out the war-drums from the Legion's side of the river that had been everpresent since before Ace had even been transferred months ago.

The LT cast his gaze from side to side, slowly scanning the assembled enlisted infantrymen, hands clasped behind his back, before giving a curt briefing. "Gentlemen, it is our duty to hold the rear in case of a Legion pincer from the West. I'll be operating the radio to call in ranger support as necessary."

As he opened his mouth to speak again, a deafening shockwave swept over the assembled men; a fireball flung the base of the massive AA gun into the air above their heads before gravity tore it down again onto the concrete. Andrews barely flinched. Matthews looked around for a threat. Hernandez covered his head with both arms. Smith stared in stunned awe at the plume of smoke that drifted into the early morning sky.

Distant sounds of gunfire from the West joined those of the East, and with them came a heightened sense of dread. They were pinned on both sides, fish in a barrel. The men began scrambling to cover behind sandbags; Oliver wasn't expecting an attack from the West, or if he was, he didn't give a dam about fortifying against it. There were no roofs or machine guns, and the half-circles of cover were facing the approach from the East.

The LT wasted no more time after the explosion and quickly went to his post. Smith followed Matthews and they formed a four-man fireteam behind one ringlet; the other five in the squad, men that Jack hadn't had time to get acquainted with beyond last names, were hunkering down in a similar fashion to their left. Three lines of defense lay between Smith's squad and the road to Boulder City. Andrews was focused, scanning all around them for red and black. Guillermo gave a brief shudder after bracing his rifle atop the stacks of sediment. Matthews squinted on the right side, positioned just far enough around to catch the sun in his peripheral vision. The LT was perched atop the visitor center's roof, radio in hand, a pair of binoculars in the other.

The dulled sounds of combat from the East no longer reached them as they waited, watching for whatever the Legion would throw at them. Ace had heard rumors about radio reports from ranger posts mentioning Super Mutant legionnaires, packs of feral ghouls, even legionnaires covering themselves in pitch and charging headlong at NCR patrols. He spared a glance over his shoulder towards the fortified middle of the dam and saw NCR soldiers, army troopers and rangers alike, scrambling around the wooden fortress and intake towers.

His sense of dread grew and grew until finally Smith saw a single, tiny shape running along the road to the dam with reckless abandon. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and fired a single shot at the sprinting shape. A split second later the figure dropped to the ground, rolled, and came up with his hands raised as if in surrender, yet continued to run towards them at an uninhibited pace. The LT shouted down to him "HOLD FIRE! RANGER INCOMING!"

Matthews shot Jack a glare under his greying, dark unibrow, and spat up a smattering of words, "Don't lose your head, kid." The ranger closed the distance soon enough, stopping in front of the doors to the main entrance of the dam to bend over and wheeze out a few breaths with his gloved hands on his kneecaps, before he took the steps three at a time up to the LT and his radio.

Smith could hear him from yards away as he stated with stoic professionalism: "Legion came down from the hills, cut us off from Station Delta, Station Alpha, and Boulder City." The ranger let out a loud gasp as he took a deep breath before continuing, "Looks like a full century."

The LT repeated what the ranger had said into the radio before asking, "Recruits, primes, or veterans?"

"Mixed unit, lots of rifles from what I gathered in a glance. Shot out the checkpoint's radio before they took aim at us."

"ETA?"

"A minute or two if they're in a hurry. Maybe ten if not. Of course, they might just hold the approach to cut-off our retreat and reinforcements."

Smith focused on the road again, and tried to wipe the newly-formed sweat off of the palms of his hands on a sandbag. He checked his rifle once more; safety off, mag full, and wished he had a bayonet, or better yet a grenade launcher. His "lucky knife" was a switchblade he had bought off a shifty trader on The Strip the day that Searchlight was bombed, and it wouldn't do him much good against a spear or a machete.

A bead of sweat dripped from the corner of his left eyebrow, splashing inaudibly upon the collar of his uniform. The disturbance focused his mind once more on awaiting the Legion attack, just in time to see a pebble fall from the cliff to his right. He looked up and saw the gleam of metal and glass scopes, and the flashes of numerous rifles firing towards him. The private grabbed the lip of the sandbag ringlet as his world exploded with gunfire, hauling himself over to shelter in the corner as screams cried out around him.

As he pressed his back into cover, facing away from the cliff, he saw the spark of the LT's radio being shattered from FMJ rounds atop the visitor center. The LT stood up with his service rifle raised into the air before crumpling onto the roof from bullets tearing through his center-of-mass. Smith tried to lift his rifle off of the ground in front of him before he saw a small, bloody shape lying atop the sandbag to the left of his face. The fingernail and tan complexion made it unmistakable; it was Hernandez's severed finger. Private Jack "Ace" Smith shit himself and fell off of his feet back into it while covering his head with his forearms.

* * *

AN: This story will include elements taken from and references to the Wasteland series, Fallen Earth, RAGE by iD Software, cancelled Fallout titles such as Van Buren, F1, F2, and Tactics. Healing mutations such as Bethesda's ghoul radiation-sponge idea will not be featured in this story. The captures used in the attack were inspired by the deathsquads sent out by the USSR against their enemies in WW2. The women with torn clothing are meant to be slaves that rebelled within a few weeks of the attack, but instead of being crucified or otherwise made an example of on the spot, were used by the Legion as bullet sponges. The red Xs were therefore removed from their clothing to signify their loss of status as slaves, being considered by the Legion to lack virtue once more as mere captives, as well as to demoralize the women themselves. The men with dog-tags are NCRA POWs. Those mentioned as being violent and having histories of chem-use are raiders. The elderly and other young men are tribals unfit for assimilation. All of the companions from the game will be featured in the story, although some will be more recurring than the rest. No-bark Noonan and Fantastic will appear as well. The power armor system from F4 had both positives and negatives in my opinion; for this story, consider the armor to have the same size, but the frames to be irremovable parts of the armor system, although the armor plates can simply be removed as is the case with the NCR's salvaged armor. In addition, the power core system will not be present, as a miniature nuclear reactor capable of powering local parts of cities' electrical grids would be more power than necessary for a single set of power armor, and if such external power sources were implemented, they would most certainly be armored rather than exposed.


	2. Chapter 2: Mixed Signals

AN: Thank you very much Alexeij, ScrimshawPen, and BJSC for your reviews and feedback!

* * *

Praefectus Praetorio Lucius walked past the throne of Caesar, with a fresh set of rare furs and fabrics strewn over it, his aging body a coiled spring of energy. Crimson curtains flowed over him in his wake like the tidal waves of Lake Mead far below, a tear in the cloth evident above his head as he purposefully marched out of Caesar's War Tent. Lucius passed Vulpes and a pair of his own praetorians standing guard, all of whom gave a salute; a fist crossed over their chests, their chins set and eyes gleaming with determination. He absently surveyed the arena, allowing his mind to continue filling with thoughts of anticipation and hatred. NCR victories would not go unpunished.

As he approached the howitzer, fitted with a new firing mechanism courtesy of a well-armed tribe known as "The Boomers," his anticipation turned to heart-palpitating excitement. The breach was already loaded with an HE shell, one capable of dismantling walls and shattering bones with its concussive blast. Nearby, alongside one wall of The Fort's central hill, lay an orderly stack of munitions: fragmentation, phosphorous, incendiary, HE, HEAT, and various gases amongst them. He took a deep breath, steadied his hands to fire the hulking, Old World weapon, and awaited the distant explosions in the canyon below. The simultaneous detonations of the Legion's disposable beasts' collars and satchels would serve as the catalyst that triggered his bombardment; the toppling of the intake tower where the ranger sharpshooters were laying low would trigger a crimson tide, sweeping across the dam to drown the profligates in their own blood.

Lucius closed his eyes, taking in the sounds of war drums, gunfire, and finally, a chain of small explosions peppering the eastern side of the dam. The prefect's eyes shot open, his mind clear, and with the pull of a lever, he activated the firing mechanism. The howitzer's hammer struck the shell's primer, igniting the powder inside in a contained explosion; the rapid movement of metal scraping upon metal sparked a minuscule plasma charge, expertly hidden within the firing mechanism. Intense heat melted through the solid steel confines of the artillery piece with ease, allowing the explosion to cascade out of the venerable cannon with disastrous results. The shell being propelled out of the barrel to sail down range had its payload catalyzed by the inferno, unable to escape the oven of flame during the span of brief milliseconds. The entire piece of artillery was blown apart within the single moment of Lucius firing, blasting a solid chunk of metal the size of a dinner plate back into the praetorian's head that lodged itself into his skull. His thoughts were not fast enough to register betrayal or his eminent demise; his last conscious thought was, "For Caesar."

* * *

Mercenaries. Cutthroats. Guns for hire. Paid killers. Soldiers of fortune. Raiders seeking rewards. Heartless bastards. Whatever their creeds, whatever they refer to themselves as, or what others may call them, they're a reality of life in a warzone. Three hundred men, with a rare few women scattered throughout, were perched all over the peaks of the ridges overlooking Boulder City's ruins. Dark brown leathers, black-painted combat armor, and untanned rawhide kept the private military hidden in the light of the early dawn.

The mercs had filed into the harsh Nevada desert through Mojave Outpost like a procession of ants; over the span of days, weeks, or months they arrived as guards and hired hands for caravans, with promises of wealth to be won in heartbeats and spent over lifetimes, or certain death as consolation. A gamble far more meaningful than the petty games of debonaire patrons flocking to The Strip. Others had answered the deadly siren's call of House's couriers and radio broadcasts from far to the South; dogs of war from what was once Mexico battled the current of the Colorado River, passing concrete NCR bunkers and passing themselves off as traders until they reached the very origin of those same fortifications. Legion territory did not impede the flow of bodies with minds eager to embrace the primal struggle of man, for after all, merchants could do as they pleased under Caesar's rule. Only the river crossing presented a danger, as armed sentries from both sides, aquatic predators, and jagged rocks worn and slick from the tides of the artificial lake threatened to steal their fortunes preemptively.

All the shot-callers had met with House's envoy the evening before, coordinated by the lord of New Vegas' network of communications, the funds levied from The Three Families, and the master of The Strip's uncanny predilection for prediction notifying them of Caesar's attack. The tyrant had chosen to make a historic gesture that appealed to his own vanity, striking on the first of the very month created to honor his ancient namesake. The captains, sergeants, chiefs, lieutenants, bosses, leaders, negotiators, salesmen, head honchos, biggest beard, or whatever other title they chose, had assembled deep among the shattered buildings of Boulder City.

The Courier had scanned the faces of the mercenary captains from behind the neon-crimson lenses of an inscrutable combat gasmask, learning who they were with his augmented eyes alone. In the very center of the posse stood a gruff looking man that had the biggest beard anyone there had ever seen in their entire lives, despite the intense desert heat; he was covered from the neck down in a hodgepodge of myriad armor pieces, including leather, weatherproof tarp, hide, wrought iron, chitin, ceramic, hardened plastics, ballistic fiber, and steel armor plates. One merc was clad in advanced combat armor with a gauss rifle strapped across his back; a keen eye would note the additional coils wrapped around the barrel. Another carried a single-shot, breach-loading grenade launcher and an AER-9 DEW whilst strapped into a suit of contemporary plate armor sans pauldrons. A squat fellow with a burrowing gaze wore a lamellar of sorts from ballistic fibers and ceramic plates, and upon his back was a G11 with a mounted optic. The lone 'Sander, clearly from Shady, was a swarthy mustachioed sort that held some resemblance to the portraits of Aradesh on the NCR bills and had his hand on the strap securing his Colt Rangemaster rifle. An old, blue-eyed gunslinger in a weather-beaten leather duster only had one arm visible through the sleeves. A tanned ex-ranger still protected by modern NCR-made combat armor smoked a hand-rolled, coyote tobacco cigar. The face and stance of another said "lifelong soldier" more-so than words possibly could, with a two-headed bear tattooed across his exposed upper chest. He hefted a "City-Killer" combat shotgun with a bayonet that was more spear than knife.

Enmity separated some of them from each other. A woman wearing a hood of interwoven bandanas, with scars upon her lips and cheeks, burned a hole through the head of an ex-slaver with the unmistakable malice in her eyes; an outlaw forever marked as one of the old guild by the hawk tattoo that dominated his face. Two mestizos, hailing from Old Mexico by the look of them, seemed to be ready to draw on each other in a heartbeat. One was a military man, wearing a beret and an Old World uniform unlike those Courier Six had seen before, with medals pinned across his chest. His posture was rigid, back perfectly straight despite the heavy German-made battle rifle he carried. The other had donned a sombrero, with machetes and dynamite strapped across his chest on bandoliers, a crazed gleam in his bloodshot eyes and an Armalite rifle slung upon his back.

The more savage of the congregation, those seeking to revel in the violence just as much as the promise of riches, kept to the outskirts of the crescent of bodies. One man in his late-twenties, approaching middle-age for life in the wasteland, had appeared to sneer at the sight of the more urban among the assembly beneath the loose fabric of the mask covering his mouth and nose. His mongrelized features hinted at a certain nervousness as well, especially apparent when he had rubbed the back of his hand, chafing a palm-sized mass of angry, red scar tissue. It looked like some deformed, FEV-dipped beast. A tribal warrior wearing pieces of thick, rubber automobile tires, proudly displayed a broad, wide-bladed machete in the sinewy sheath on his gecko-skin belt. The favored weapon of his people, it could only be assumed. A crude pipe rifle hung from his back, and various tribal concoctions were arrayed in gourds about the belt supporting his tapering loincloth. A shifting mess of long, greasy knots sprouted from the scabby scalp of a feral looking man, his fingers cracked and raw around a pair of crudely shaped knuckledusters. Strapped to his torso was a brace of pistols and serrated knives that crisscrossed from his naval up to his collarbone. The gaunt visage of a thin, unnerving apparition of a man seemed hollow, a mask over a set of seemingly slitted eyes that shifted erratically. A second-skin of scales winded their way around his lithe body, all but concealing knives made from bone within. His spear peaked over his head and drew the eye with its distinctive two-pronged tip, reminiscent of canines, or fangs.

Those that seemed more civilized stood near each other, whether out of wariness of the more tribal and mutated representatives or out of some sort of subconscious kinship. Heavy armor plates met each other over dark urban camo fatigues on a man with an angular face that had the look of carved stone. A white beret hung over the side of his forehead, casting long shadows over the lines of his expressionless visage. A cocky-looking man with a shaved head and a goatee, brandishing a paratrooper's model of assault carbine on a strap over his pre-war combat armor. An Amerindian freelancer, armed with an automatic rifle. He wore a long jacket of ballistic fiber over pre-war flannel and jeans, with distinctive accessories marking him as one of the Navajo Nation. An upper-middle aged (if the observer was being generous in their appraisal) officer proudly donning a pristine cap and tan uniform devoid of wrinkles or insignia, clasped his hands behind his back, conveniently below the opaque holster custom-made for a large sidearm.

Of the mutants among them, all were well armed. A Super Mutant from The Master's Army, who marched with rigid posture and composed himself as a true soldier, carried a belt-fed, fully-automatic grenade launcher among other weapons. Another Super Mutant wore a venerable plastic tarp like a cloak, with a .30-30 in one hip holster and a 20-gauge repeater in the other, both with their barrels sawn-down to a more manageable "pistol" length. On its back was an anti-tank missile launcher with a collapsible stock. A hulking Nightkin, with a hide so grey it nearly shone blue in the dying light of dusk, hefted a "staff," a sturdy fence post to mere men, that kept a brahmin skull aloft, elevated to survey its surroundings. One was a Ghoul, who's face looked like a sinewy cut of steak, proudly displayed an Old World flag across his chest-plate. His DKS-501 and assault rifle gave the impression that he was part of the pre-war military, and the cold look in his eyes left little room for doubt.

The one that had stood out to Six was a fellow seemingly nondescript in every way, from his short yet full head of hair, to his patchwork vest of cloth and leather, his bolt-action rifle and medium-framed revolver, to even his mild brown-irised gaze. Upon this last man the death-defying mailman's slow scan had stopped. The merc's visage had been blank, absent of fear or even anticipation.

They had recieved their orders then, been divided into "sections" based on how many men they led and what sort of armaments they carried. The job was simple: keep the Legion out of Boulder City, and protect the medics, nurses, doctors, and surgeons, even if the NCR were the ones attacking. House would notify them via radio if any change of plans was to occur.

The ruins they provided overwatch for were the epicenter of a field hospital that had been hastily arranged within the scrap walls lining the pre-war city, with vast canvass tents, a squadron of Mr. Orderlys and Ms. Nannys as well as an auto-doc all provided by Mr. Robert House himself, rows upon rows of gurneys and stretchers lining the length of entire streets, an old hotel storing provisions set aside for the paid laborers and volunteers assisting the Followers, and a few sparsely fortified checkpoints manned by the guards that had been hired by the Followers themselves. Doc Mitchell was down there, having volunteered upon hearing about the arrangements, though the trip was hell on his old knees. With the supplies and funds gifted to the Followers of the Apocalypse, they were able to call in convoys of reinforcements in the form of more medical personnel with accompanying guards over the past few weeks. Arcade Israel Gannon as well as his old family friend and mentor to some degree, Doctor Henry, had joined the efforts.

The concrete mixing yard was empty, absent of movement or life through the dim light amplified by magnification scopes. The local workers at the yard had been told by their foreman that production had to continue despite the tense environment now that Quarry Junction was operational again. House had bought out the ownership and NCR contracts for both locations, and set the mixing crews to the task of breaking down the rubble and crumbling buildings to boost productivity, reduce transport costs, and finally cleanup the place that so many had lived their whole lives at only four and a half years ago. At the end of the afternoon shift yesterday, House had transmitted a surprising directive: every worker would be off for the next week, and every man was encouraged to volunteer with the Followers of the Apocalypse during that time.

A pair of their scopes traced over the great stone memorial, then onto the watering hole nearby. Ike's Big Horn Saloon had seen a welcome resurgence of business since the mixing yard had been started up again, but he was no fool, or so he believed, despite how stubbornly he clung to his hometown and his business. The barkeep had risen early, far before dawn, and finished boarding up his establishment. He watched the sunrise beam onto his floor through the gaps between planks, anxiously gripping his lever-action scattergun from behind the counter. His mustache twitched and sweat slowly slid down around his balding head as he thought of the horrors that might be in store for his town, his bar, and himself. The Legion would burn all of his booze, and him alive with it if he gave them half a chance. Therefore, he reckoned, why not take the more potent liquors and prepare for his own bonfire with them? He had a few lighters and matches ready under the counter, along with dry rags stuffed into the tops of the bottles. An old trick called an "Antioch Cocktail" as he recalled. More than anything, he prayed that life would go back to normal soon.

The vigil of the pedestrian privateers was one of tedium, trepidation, and half-focused squinting into the distance. The bored among them dialed through the airwaves mindlessly when their superiors weren't nearby to reprimand them, intercepting radio signals that ranged from encrypted NCR data snippets in numbers and morse code, similar Legion broadcasts with Latin and various tribal phrases interspersed throughout, direct NCR orders from Oliver mentioning unknowable pre-established tactics and codewords for units, and the medley of music played by Mr. New Vegas between emergency public safety advisory broadcasts. Dozens of scopes were tracking the century of legionaries below the rocky crags and ridges miles to the East. The meager NCRA checkpoints between the ruins and the dam had been overrun in mere minutes at first light. Strangely enough, not a single conturbernium made their way towards the demolished city.

After some time, the radios, whether handheld, backpack portable, headset, or pip-boy integrated, crackled to life in the ears of the fire-team, squad, and overall group leaders. Over the backdrop of a rising golden sun, a deceptively natural-sounding, yet artificial voice issued commands into their ears: "Section B, you will proceed down the road to reinforce Section A and neutralize the hostile pincer movement. Sections C and D will remain in place."

A few of the mercs switched frequencies after that, tuning in to another signal, before relaying their previous orders. The reply was forthcoming, "Stay the course, but prepare to move as directed."

* * *

Private Kyle Edwards spotted movement through his cracked binoculars. Fleeting shapes faded in and out of the rock formations to the West in the dim morning light. He shouted down the ramp of the watchtower to the rangers below, mainly other ghouls like himself, "Skirmishers!" A slug of cheap iron hit the private's metal breastplate like a Super Mutant's fist striking a puppy, sending him lurching back to fall off of the short tower.

He landed upon his back and sent a fleeting cloud of rust-colored dust and dirt up around him, before wheezing in pain. The sound was like a dull knife sliding across sandpaper, but it was dry, and that meant that Kyle would still be among the living for the time being. He slowly lifted himself with his hands to either side of his quickly-bruising torso, and saw the other rangers, the official rangers of the camp, strapping into their combat armor and making mad dashes for their rifles. The fall had separated him from his rifle, and so he drew the cheap, snubnosed .38 that Erasmus had given him upon his arrival months ago out of its holster. Something gleamed in the dull illumination between two rocks high on the ridge ahead, before a distinctive shape formed around it as it flew towards him. The spear passed him by, sailing within a few short inches of his head before he had his revolver up and aimed at the attacker's cover.

A tremendous force lifted him headlong onto his feet and nearly off them again from the back of his collar, before he realized it was his CO, Squad Commander Erasmus. The mestizo man's dark eyes searched him over for a brief moment, before judging that Edwards was in decent shape. "Private, get to the gate and blend into that wall. Your pistol's no good here. Move!" With that, he shoved Kyle towards the camp's North and fired off a shot at an unlucky rock formation.

Kyle reached the wall and stacked up against it without issue besides the protesting of his burning chest. A legionary in red cloth, so dark that it seemed like a coating of blood, leapt atop the wall next to the bewildered private and reached back to haul his footstool of an ally up as well, before awkwardly falling back over with a leg still dangling inside the compound. Edwards pulled the hammer back once again, then jumped in surprise to his right at the sound of pounding upon the main junk-wall door. Another ranger had shoved a broom through the solitary handle to keep the raiding party at bay before he had arrived. The private had the brief, passing thought of " _A broom out here? Really? No-one sweeps the tents, much less_ -" when a stick of lit dynamite flew over his head and skidded along the ground.

Kyle threw his aching body at it like a molerat diving after a particularly juicy radroach, clutched it in his hand like a tiny, delicate, explosive newborn, and hurled it over the gate. A deafening explosion tore the door off its hinges, sending it flying into Kyle's knee with the force of a mad brahmin bull on buffout; he toppled over onto his right knee and yowled in an embarrassingly high pitch despite his rough vocal chords. A legionary stumbled through the opening holding something behind his back upon first glance... Then the staggered slaver-soldier turned to face the ghoulified private, and Edwards realized that he simply didn't have a left arm. An unmistakable, steady spray of blood painted the wall as he passed, panicked eyes locked on Kyle's own. The dying man reached for Edwards' leathery throat with his remaining hand.

The private put a 38-caliber slug through the bottom of his chin and the twitching soon-to-be corpse fell onto him headfirst. After an eternity of a second, he pushed the corpse to the side with both of his now-aching arms. A head of robust plumage came into view through the gap in the wall, until the body supporting it jerked briefly and a feather floated off daintily. The rising sun reflected off of the opaque aviators of the venerable ranger that calmly strode up beside the Searchlight survivor, socketing ammo into the tube of his repeater. A cocky grin seemed to quite literally crack the ghoul's decrepit face as he glanced at the private and handed him a loaded SMG from a holster on his lower back. Kyle raised it high with both hands, leaving the revolver in the dust before him.

He was unable to hear the sharp click when he tried to spray the huddle of legionaries bunched up around the empty doorway, still deafened as he was by the explosion. He turned the gun to the side, an old 9mm "grease gun" by his reckoning, and flipped the safety lever to "fire." A bullet tore past his experienced ally's head, splitting his right ear in half within the corner of Edward's field of vision. Kyle let loose with a volley of Luger rounds, spraying the enemy without thought, much less remorse. The old ghoul ignored the bleeding cartilage, and simply cranked the lever of his reliable carbine as he poured lead or whatever cheaper hand-loaded metals he had into the hapless legionaries. A small pile of bodies lay around the entranceway, their blood soaking into crimson dyed cloth and painted armor.

Kyle dared to look around at his surroundings; a fire burned in one corner of the ranger station's junk-wall, a corpse lay sprawled atop another section with his arms and chest leaving a trail of hot blood leaking down into the dirt, and Comm Officer Greene was hunched over in his booth, looking wounded but still guarding the radio with a pistol held high. An unarmored ghoul lay still on his back outside of a tent. Erasmus' wide-brimmed hat was pinned to a steel barrel by a spear, but the man himself was leaning against a wall with the sun in his eyes and a rifle bared across his chest. The shuffling of boots crunching over pebbles and scuffling through dust around the walls was lost on Edwards, but he turned back around and grabbed his sidearm nonetheless.

The old, bleeding ghoul to his left stood up straight and half-chuckled out a loud challenge in his gruff baritone, "Is that all you've got you skirt-wearing cock-suckers?! Go back to your communal tents and touch yourselves to Caesar's bald head!"

A half-uttered shout of "Retribu-!" went up over a boulder on the ridge, but was cut short by another ghoulified ranger squeezing off a shot from the watchtower. A dozen legionaries hopped the walls at once from every direction, and Kyle let off a wild burst from the barely-controlled SMG in his left-hand. It split a legionary's shoulder strap as he dropped off the top of the wall, causing his chest piece to sail up and smack against his face as he landed. A shotgun exploded at the private from across the compound, belching a spray of pellets that tore a hole through the space between his left trigger and middle fingers, deflecting off of his chest plate and gun with a *clank.* Kyle dropped the automatic and gazed in shocked horror at the bubbling hole in his leathery hand while he raised his .38 special and pulled wildly, uselessly putting two dents in the far wall. His arms shook from the shock, though he didn't feel the pain. Not yet.

His irradiated confederate rolled through the dirt shoulder-first behind a jutting stone, barely covering any of his withered frame. Edwards simply backed up numbly until he tripped over the pile of corpses, then scrambled behind them for cover, opening the hole in his hand even further as he did so. Blood that wasn't his own splattered into his eye as he crouched against them and he nearly wretched as he rubbed the hot ichor off of his face on his sleeve. The private thought about the situation; they were outnumbered and outmaneuvered. There was nowhere to run. An unrelenting heartbeat bombarded his temples. His head would be split open by rocks and his back filled with lead before he could reach the river far below. Running anywhere else would just have him eaten or dying of thirst in the sun as he left a trail of blood for the Legion and even worse predators to follow. He took a deep breath to steel himself, the last he expected to ever take, and rose with one squinting eye and his revolver ready to fire.

The private's first shot took a legionary in the ribs that was charging at the radio booth with a lawnmower-blade machete, his second scraped the temple of a bald shotgunner and dropped the man to his knees in pain, and the third... The third never came as Kyle's cylinder was emptied of that last, sixth round. He uselessly slammed the trigger twice more before he ducked down again. His revolver went into its holster as he realized just how fortunate he was; his head was still on his shoulders and he was behind a pile of dead men with guns hidden throughout like swords in a haystack.

Reaching one hand under a corpse, surely the most awkward thing he had done since he asked out a girl from Shady Sands eight years earlier, he pulled out the broken haft of a throwing spear. He dropped it humorlessly and reached under another, pulling a small pouch of healing powder out of from a belt. He held his lame hand under his chin, put the pouch string between his teeth, and pulled with his jaws while reaching in again. The powder assaulted his senses as it spilled over the blood-soaked wound and down his chin, yet his hearing came back a bit as well, and with it the sounds of battle. His hand wrapped around a coin and unclenched again, digging deeper past it and finally finding the stock of a longgun with his finger-tips. His hurried search became even more desperate as he heard the falling footsteps of someone circling the outside of the wall under the steady staccato of gunfire.

The private gripped the gun and wrenched it free, pulling a single-barreled shotgun out with a mixture of joy, dismay, fear, and excitement. The legionary came into view just in time to catch a face-full of iron pellets through his tinted goggles, and Kyle thanked the same God that had let him be turned into a glorified zombie for the loaded chamber. A magazine-fed handgun slowly slid out of the dead slaver's uncurling fingers into the dirt, and Edwards crawled with one hand to it in order to keep from having more holes punched through his once-more aching body. He realized as he reached it that he still had the pouch's string clenched between his teeth, and dropped it as he raised the pistol up to examine; it was loaded, sure enough, a 9mm by his estimate.

He nearly rolled back behind the corpses before thinking better of it, and began circling around the perimeter at a slow jog. The soldier passed a dead body hanging by its leg, his first kill he briefly recalled, but pressed on without hesitation and gazed up at the ridge. A wounded legionary was hiding nearby behind a rock with oozing punctures through one leg, barely suppressing cries of insufferable pain. Kyle walked up to him and put a bullet through his head that left the man with his jaws clenched even in death.

Edwards neared the far-side of the defenses before taking a tomahawk from out of the corner of his eye that embedded itself in the right side of his torso, where his chest met his shoulder. He nearly spun out of both reflex and pain while he flexed his trigger finger, filling the bastard full of holes. Kyle reached with his bleeding hand to pry it out, then thought better of it; he knew that he was going to die today, so it was best to take as many Legion bastards with him as he could rather than speeding up the bleeding. Gunfire continued from inside the walls as he finished his sweep.

The door facing out towards the craters to the South was left ajar. Kyle kicked it open with his pistol at the ready. A decanus turned too late and caught a bullet through the back of his leather skullcap. Erasmus saw the blood-covered private from behind the comms post before he took a high-caliber round to the collarbone and fell against a solid section of unforgiving scrap-metal. Private Edwards fired at the smoking barrel sticking out from the tents and emptied his mag. He opened his stiff hand, letting the empty pistol fall to the ground before he reached down and lifted a machete from a dead legionary's belt.

The bald man he had grazed earlier stopped moaning in pain the instant that the flat blade came down across the back of his neck. Another wounded legionary crawled on his back away from the skull-faced spectre, and threw a handful of dirt into the private's good eye. Kyle jumped onto the prone man's chest with both feet before blindly swinging the long knife down over and over, reveling for the damning eternity of a brief moment in the sounds of anguish and splitting skull. The dying man's last act was to reach up and squeeze the unofficial ranger-in-training's wounded hand until it bled with renewed vigor. The private's scream interrupted the newfound silence; he left the machete to jut out of the man's forehead like an elevated paper cutter as he gripped his wounded hand and rubbed his shoulder against his face to clear his vision.

Neither hearing nor seeing anyone still living, ranger or raider, he staggered over to the radio booth and lifted Greene's corpse off of the crackling radio. The receiver felt weightless in his hand as the bleeding from the tomahawk and gunshot wound numbed his body. Keying the dial the way he had observed Greene do so several times before, he spoke in a pained, gravelly tenor: "This is junior ranger . . . private Kyle Edwards, Mojave Ranger Station Echo. Legion hit us, station's lost if they send any reinforcements. As far as I know, I'm it. . . Uh, over." Only static greeted him for half-a-minute.

A panicked reply finally came through the speakers, "The Legion is attacking Hoover Dam! You'll have to holdout on your own, soldier!"

Kyle dropped the receiver and walked out of the booth with a vacant expression on his face. Sure enough, the tough bastard that had made a stand with him at the gate was dead. A shit-eating grin split the stretched skin of his face under his dark aviators, and a series of holes traced their way through his armor, up his chest and shoulder. Erasmus had bled out. The ranger in the watchtower still had his gun propped up in his lap despite the hole in his gut and the chunk missing from his head. Two more lay dead inside the small "barracks" tent, shot while putting on their armor, with the last still sprawled out in front of it as he was before at the start of the battle. There was another ranger out on a solitary patrol the night before, a veteran, but he must've been ambushed before he could make it back. Legionaries were spread out around the walls, at least two dozen within the compound alone.

Private Kyle Edwards stepped into the unoccupied supply tent as his legs began to fail him. He found an ammo box full of med-x and stimpacks, reached inside, and started rolling up his sleeve. Edwards had never been a chem-head, but he figured _fuck it, why not?_ The sunrise over the desert was beautiful this morning, worth being the last thing he would ever see. As the chems kicked in, his pain started fading away. His heart rate went spastic, and he realized too late that mixing a stimulant with a muscle relaxer was a poor choice. He felt woozy, yet weightless, as he gazed into the cloudless Mojave dawn.

* * *

AN: The leaders of the bands of mercenaries described include the enemy that has a unique gauss rifle at the top of the map in-game, a description that coincides with the gear from the pre-order "Mercenary Pack," a desert ranger that's also a Clint Eastwood reference, an original character that is in charge of the group Big Beard and Little Beard are part of, a soldier from the Shi, Norton, a White Crow from Fallen Earth, and several others.


	3. Chapter 3: No Vacation

AN: Thanks again to Alexeij, ScrimshawPen, Xcom-anders, and BJSC for the reviews!

* * *

Three conturbernia fired down upon the cowardly profligates from the overlook, cutting through half of a platoon in mere moments like a coyote through the haunches of a sickly bighorner. The vexillarius in charge stood at the fore and laughed haughtily at how easily they fell, keeping his SMG trained on the front doors of the visitor center nonetheless. They were like ants scurrying into the cracks, to the bottom of the cliff where his legionaries couldn't quite reach and crush them. One stone-faced trooper dared to look up with his rifle aimed high from the sandbags that barely concealed any of his body, and was rewarded with a volley of rounds to his barely-armored gut. A ranger, one of the elite among the pitiful ranks of the Bear, lost his hat and some of its contents as he dove for cover over the side of the roof.

The standard-bearer, holding temporary command of the group, turned to his men and spoke, "Drop a grenade on the survivors. You five watch the rear. You, watch the approach from the road. Decanus, your men target the sniper nest. May Mars grant us more wretches to slaughter!" The legionaries left without new instructions continued to pin down the survivors with potshots, taunts, and new holes in the fresh corpses. A decanus fetched a crude tin-can filled with volatile powder and nails from a molerat-skin bag on his belt. An odd sound akin to a rush of air and electricity interrupted the vexillarius' train of thought and he turned to see one of his legionaries headless, another floating several feet in the air, and three more quickly collapse to the surface of the rocks. A bullet tore through the middle of the grenadier's forearm; his makeshift grenade clattered upon the stones. Flashes erupted from nowhere in particular before the war-party leader's very eyes, as if the air itself was spewing lead at him. The vexillarius leapt off the cliff without a second thought, landing awkwardly. He had no time to contemplate his twisted ankles; a unibrowed veteran put a slug through the back of his head the instant he touched down onto the concrete.

Above on the ridge, transparent monstrosities clubbed, shot, slashed, and threw legionaries off the ridge forming the canyon wall. To the slavers' credit, only the ones that suffered blunt-force trauma screamed. A red-beret wearing soldier stepped out from behind a rock formation and walked past the nightkin, reloading an N99 pistol as he did so. Black armor plates were secured over his chest, and a facemask the same bright red as his beret concealed his features below the goggles jutting out from his face. The ex-corporal slowly kneeled, then lay flat on his belly after he had brought his two scoped .308s off of his back. One was a DKS-501 with a flash suppresor, given to him by a friend, perhaps a mentor as well. The other was his reliable bolt-action, serving more as a backup than anything. A set of massive, unseen hands hefted a heavy automatic rifle down beside the man and deployed it upon an affixed bipod. The fifty-caliber AMR he had used a few nights ago was strapped to the back of the leader of his mutant retinue. An eyebot floated high above the sniper and his invisible fire support, chirping pre-established codes for the direction and elevation of targets. The marksman shouted to the troopers below, "I'm a former corporal from 1st Recon. The legionaries are dead."

Private Jack Smith uncovered his head and craned his neck to look up at the cliff face. Dark goggles kept the sun out of his savior's eyes, facing East. Matthews' furrowed unibrow quickly came to dominate the private's vision, a solid v bisecting the old bastard's lower forehead. Jack's face slammed against the tarmac before he knew what hit him. The taste of blood filled his mouth, leaking from the inside of both of his cheeks. A bear's paw lifted him by the neck and that damned unibrow was so close to his face that he nearly retched, seeing it in such detail. "YOU SORRY SACK OF SHIT! YOUR COWARDICE DISGUSTS ME PRIVATE!" Matthews' eyes nearly bulged out of his head as his nostrils inflated and narrowed again in the same moment. He half-dropped and half-threw Smith against the sandbags as he shouted with renewed vigor, "DID YOU FUCKING SHIT YOURSELF!?" His jaws twisted, his mouth opened and closed, and finally he simply walked away at a loss for words. "Ace" stood up on shaky legs and looked around. Hernandez was stooped against the weathered stone of the cliff, staring dumbfounded at the bleeding nub where his index finger used to be attached. Moans, shuffling boots, and the sounds of rifles being picked up filled Jack's ringing ears.

Andrews was lying on the pavement, wide-eyed, with his jaw clamped shut so hard it looked like his teeth would shatter. Blood was pooling on his abdomen, running down his thighs. It appeared for a moment as if both of his hands were gone and his arms were sinking directly into his wounded gut, before Smith realized that his hands were simply submerged in his own blood. Andrews was a tough bastard, but bravery wasn't keeping him from wailing and crying for help from his confederates, his family, or God; the agony was too intense to bare breathing, much less screaming. The private trudged over to his friend's side and offered him his canteen. Panicked, pale eyes met his and the wounded man accepted. Jack poured it and held the corporal's chin. After a few sips worth, Smith heard him speak in a clipped, tight-lipped monotone. "I'll be alright. People have survived worse. The bleeding is slowing down, see? I'm going home with a medal. I'm going to be fine." Jack hoped he was right.

* * *

Andy enjoyed watching the sunrise through his blinds. There wasn't much else to do so early in the morning, but old habits, along with his newfound responsibilities, ensured that he always woke up just before dawn. With Boone gone, ( _and his wife,_ _Daisy, Jeannie May Crawford,_ _that anxious fella' Bruce_ _Isaacs, damn the town sure is_ _thinning out fast!_ ) watch duty naturally fell into his lap, despite how he went through hell every morning getting up the steps. Manny had agreed to spare him the night shift. He slowly rose from bed with both hands pushing him up onto his good leg. The walking stick beside his nightstand helped him reach his radio, and he turned it on out of habit. "It's a Sin" played through the built-in speakers for a moment before he turned the dial to the common NCRA frequency. The ex-ranger's eyes grew half-an-inch when he heard the pandemonium of comms officers shouting over each other: "Legion-" "-lorn Hope sustaining" "My CO is bleeding ba-" "reports of skirmish-"

He hobbled headlong over to his makeshift armor rack, and went about putting on the padded segments of ceramic, metal, and tightly woven fibers, unnervingly slowly in his crippled state. He donned his old ranger hat, buckled his ammo belt around his waist, grabbed the loaded revolver in his nightstand drawer, and rushed out the door. Manny was groggily walking down the steps as the former ranger emerged from his bungalow. Andy wasted no time and shouted, "The Legion's attacking! It's an all-out offensive!" Silence reigned while Manny stood in place for a pregnant moment before his mind snapped out of thoughts of sleep and ran back up the stairs. "Get behind the counter and make sure no-one can sneak up on me." Chris Haversam peeked his head out from the doorway of Vargas' room with his mouth agape. Andy's dark eyes narrowed in anticipation of the short flight of wooden stairs, before he told Chris, "Warn the town!" Haversam's muddled mind understood how dire the situation was and he started running door to door yelling in a sandpaper baritone, "Legion! Get your guns! Slavers are on their way! The Legion is attacking!

Cliff Briscoe was hunched over, leaning on the counter of the Dino Bite with his arms crossed over the countertop. He opened as he did everyday, bright and early at 6:15. Then, he awaited the inevitable boredom. Every day or two, someone would stop by the gift shop. Not to buy anything though. Just travelers looking for a room that had read the sign on the door of the motel's office. At least he was making steady caps nowadays from that business. He heard shouting outside and looked up to see Manny Vargas, the reliable night watchman, nearly slam the door off its hinges. "Hot damn Manny! Forget your smokes or something?" The man's dark features focused on the shop clerk's face and he spoke without panic or mirth. "Legion are launching an offensive. You're basically the mayor. Haversam is warning the town, you should go organize the defense. Get everyone to high ground." Briscoe stammered "Uhh, high ground. Right. Got it. When will they be here?" Manny was already up the stairs to his usual perch and barely turned around to reply. "No idea. Likely soon." He slammed the door closed behind him and left Cliff standing there, dumbfounded, like a molerat up to its waist in a New Vegas swimming pool.

Andy limped through the front door a moment later. "Looks like we'll be sharing a shift today, Mr. Briscoe. My salesmanship is a little rusty, I must admit."

The balding black man gulped down the nervous feelings he had, and shook his head. "You guard the shop, I have to lead the town." Despite his apprehension, he managed to make a quip to the retired ranger upon stepping out into the bright sunlight, "Sell as many Dinky the T-Rexs as you can today and you might just get a promotion!" Both of the men chuckled, and some of the tension drained out of him as he prepared for what he had to do.

A few caravaneers half-emerged from motel rooms with their guns clutched in hand. Briscoe could hear Haversam as he ran hollering through the street past amazingly still-standing suburban houses, waking up the resident scavvers. Cliff shouted up to the visiting travelers "Meet me at the intersection." The McBrides didn't hesitate in their old age, he noticed as he rounded the corner, going around the back of their home and tying down their brahmin with tent spikes and heavy ropes. "Doctor" Straus' pair of unpaid former bodyguards, now simply lingering in town, waiting for some opportunity to come their way, moseyed over to the intersection of the motel and the main street. Briscoe reached the patch of old tarmac, leading a small procession of armed men and women in his tracks. Haversam all but panted, leaning against a sign post while he caught his breath.

The unofficial mayor and only major business owner spoke to the growing, yet meager crowd with a deep, surprisingly calm voice. "Like Chris here said, the Legion are on their way, and could be on our doorstep any minute. Andy and Manny are posted inside Dinky. I'll grab my ladder and we can climb onto the roof of the motel to defend the town from the other directions. Anyone that isn't coming up needs to stay in their homes and board up the windows or run to the hills now."

Briscoe's mouth contorted with half-formed words, but he was cut-off by the only voice of reason in the whole town, a shaggy, grey-haired older resident. "Poppycock. You rabble-rousers have got the residents of this fine municipal principality's heads twisted into a tizzy over a bunch of nonsense. The American Legion never attacked anyone, and they don't even exist anymore. Why, they haven't operated a single charter in at least three decades. I know what you're really up to. I wasn't born yesterday you know. Oh no, no sir-ree. While you get everyone's blood pressure up, the real bad apples are going to dig under the town and steal everyone's valuables. Stationary. Topiary. Dress shoes. War bonds. Silk and lace. I've seen it before, from better snake-oil salesmen than you. And to think, this used to be a nice neighborhood until people started buying into pyramid-schemes and orchestrating hostile takeovers of family-owned businesses." The old man crossed his arms below his beard and stared the mayoral merchant down.

The assembled townsfolk and motel guests stood slack-jawed and flabbergasted for a few long moments before Cliff slowly turned away and spoke up again. "Right. . . So get your guns and meet me in front of the motel as soon as possible. Haversam, go warn Old Lady Gibson up the road." He watched as Ada Straus, a family with two kids, and a destitute looking "prospector" all took off running up the road to REPCONN rather than waiting out the storm. A few moments later, he was out of breath and rummaging through his storage closet inside the spacious bungalow he called home. An avalanche of plastic dinosaur and rocket toys spilled out at his feet before he finally managed to get his ladder out. Not a single decent weapon could be found, and he wished he still had that gun that fired 5.56 rounds.

Half the town were on the roof of the Dino Dee-Lite Motel within a couple tense minutes, and the folding ladder was hauled up with them. From his vantage point, he saw a caravan tie down their brahmin in the McBride's pen, while another chose to take their chances on the road. The glorified cashier swept Interstate 93 with his tired eyes, finding nothing but sand, rocks, desert scrub, and a single, oblivious molerat that sauntered over an outcropping of stone with its padded feet. A minute went by. Then five. Ten. Fifteen minutes. The balding man caught himself nodding off, and stood with a groan over the protestation of his joints, stretching to stay alert.

His eyes returned to the horizon, and he spotted the slightest hint of movement, a shadow disappearing behind a rotund boulder. Nothing else was out there, all three approaches and the rocky hills framing them devoid of life. The watchman in Dinky's mouth must have caught sight of something exposed behind the enormous stone too. A distant cry merged with the tail-end of the resounding *crack* of a high-powered rifle, and Briscoe saw a legionary fall forward into full, albeit distant, view. A lone recruit he guessed.

In all of Cliff's years living in the town, there weren't that many raids, far less than the average settlement if the tall tales of roaming merchants held any truth. The Legion had attacked four times over the past two years, a band of Jackals once about a year before the 1st Recon vets arrived, and a minor tribe he couldn't even remember the name of had as well before House consolidated New Vegas. The Legion's skirmishers were always clad in dark red, with the occasional supervisor, from what he understood, dressed much the same in black. Manny and Boone had been more than enough to deal with them in the past, but things weren't business as usual lately. Everyone could feel the tension in the air whenever someone so much as mentioned the Legion, the Dam, or simply the River. Thankfully for the people of the town, the Fiends weren't inclined to roam all the way down through I-93, the Khans only sacked and picked fights with NCR, those deranged Vipers were still smart enough to know that without the towns along the highway there would be no trade to prey upon, and the Brotherhood of Steel had prioritized Helios One up the road over the scrap that Novac's residents scrounged up for a living. Slither-Kin had came through a decade ago looking to trade and "party," but nobody in town was stupid enough to fall for that. No-bark had called them all "Dastardly degenerates selling ocean-front property in Wyoming."

Briscoe heard a dull *thunk* that snapped him out of his remembrances and strained his ears to hear what it was; the onset of an explosion rocked the overgrown dinosaur in front of the town. Cliff's impromptu strategy offered a near three-hundred-and-sixty degree field of vision with armed Novacites watching every direction, but no-one moved or spoke for several moments after the detonation, seeing nothing. A merc wearing a bright red baseball cap shouted out from the South on the lip of the roof and opened fire with his service rifle. High-velocity rounds punctured football pads and ricocheted within a ribcage underneath. A test-site scavenger spotted another legionary atop a stony perch off in the distance and fired an ineffectual barrage of pistol rounds. The merc redirected his fire and clipped the distant slaver; his target dropped a breach-loading grenade launcher mid-firing and a frag round was propelled high into the clear morning sky, sailing unimpeded until it suddenly impacted the shoddy metal roof of the old Poseidon-Energy fueling station and burst into a small fireball. The ironically capless gun-for-hire ate a bullet for his trouble, and the bright red hat painting him as an obvious target fell freely to the sidewalk below.

Briscoe scrambled over and grabbed the man's Armalite rifle before it followed, then flattened to the top of the roof and backed up in a rearward crawl. He was no hero. He wasn't even particularly brave. Even so, he would be damned before he let everything he owned be taken away from him without a fight. Legionaries sprinted in the open towards the cover of the buildings in town and the poor militia opened fire with everything they had: pistols, a few shotguns, a couple rifles, and a laser pistol in need of a good focusing lens. The Legion opened fire with their own armaments and perforated the lung of a woman crouching on the edge ahead of Cliff. He saw a young man get hit in his exact center-of-mass, keeling over onto his knees. An aged merc to his right, grey-haired and practically ancient to be living in the wasteland, gunned down a crimson raider with his 10mm just as the bastard tried to kick Crawford's old door-in. Small arms fire, focused on the elevated retreat, intensified and soon everyone had their heads down and well away from the edge.

A spear sailed uselessly over the roof and landed in a gutter above the motel room doors. A metal cylinder bounced and rolled onto the flat surface not even five feet from Cliff's face. With reflexes that defied his abundance of years, the venerable handgun-toting mercenary next to him scooped it up and chucked it off the roof. A volley of rounds passed through brahmin leathers and the wrinkled, leathery skin beneath in the same moment. Briscoe's thoughts raced uncontrollably from a state of blank fear to "holy shit" to "glad I won't have a hole in my roof" to "old man probably would've wanted it that way." A woman's scream erupted from a house below and Cliff rose with the semi-automatic rifle held awkwardly in his arms. He did his best to line-up a shot and popped a hole through a legionary's thick leather boot, toppling him onto his side. Three more on the street noticed and let loose with a storm of bullets that *plinked* against his rifle and nearly split the hairs of his combover. A teenager grabbed him by the belt loop and pulled him down just in time to save his life. Gun shots continued to ring out and impact the edges of the roof, keeping the residents pinned. Briscoe began to sweat profusely in the early morning sun, and prayed for a miracle.

* * *

(Ex-)Ranger Andy waited, a gun resting snugly in his hand while he propped it up on the counter. The chair could have been more comfortable, but it hardly mattered at a time like this. The clatter of leather boots *thunk*ing against the wooden steps gave Andy all the cue he needed to aim and put a hole through the door and the tourist behind it with a .357 magnum round. His second shot flew through the neck and shoulder of an overzealous visitor that had leapt into the door with their entire body. The opened entrance revealed two more loiterers, one of whom caught a bullet with his heart, while the other nimbly sidestepped out of the way. Andy tracked him with his barrel, then thought better of trying to shoot him through Dinky's thick hide.

Reflex alone saved the old soldier from a legionary that crouched around the door frame and brought his scattergun to bare in one fluid motion. All the thoughts' in the shotgunner's head left his mind, carried by a wadcutter round to be blown away in the breeze; an unstoppable hail of iron pellets roared forth and made a honeycomb above the pistoleer's head in the ceiling and wall behind him. An object rebounded off of the most likely broken, open door and settled in the entryway before the counter. Andy didn't have many options, and so he simply fell backwards in his chair and raised a thick couch pillow in front of him to keep any shattered glass from the counter at bay. A pleasant surprise greeted him when instead of having burning shrapnel tear through his body, noxious smoke filled his lungs instead.

He coughed like a New Reno hooker, grabbed a globe, and threw it over the counter where it *clunked* against some sorry fool's skull. Grabbing the edge of the counter, the retiree hauled himself, whilst still seated, upright once more and shot a barely-eighteen year-old kid's eye out before the customer could hop the counter. A sixth man came around the right side of the counter and caught Andy by surprise through the smoke, wedging a machete into his shoulder pauldron. The temporary clerk deftly switched hands and blocked his face from the muzzle-flash with his right hand spread out behind the barrel, leaving the irate sightseer to fall over with a hole in his throat. The solo souvenir shop staffer reloaded his gun one cylinder at a time and yanked the machete out of his armor, letting it clatter to the floor. He called out to Manny, "Had a few grumpy tourists, but I gave them all parting gifts." Then he waited for a second wave that simply wasn't forthcoming.

* * *

A legionary turned away from the motel, hearing the sounds of his tent group's gunfire and brass hitting the old concrete. Valor in combat could earn him personal slaves, rank, and a degree of autonomy in his life, but taking slaves would earn him coin to buy a decent gun, and better rations in the short-term. _Maybe even the chance to buy_ _his parents' freedom_... A man that had joined his conturbernium a month ago, fresh from training at The Fort, followed behind. They came upon a decrepit, rusty shack, just as likely a place to find some dissolute, virtueless fool hiding as any. Two swift kicks busted the door open and sent it scraping across the floor on one hinge.

An odd sight greeted him: tiny lights were strung up along the ceiling, manikins lined the walls, and cinderblocks obstructed their path. His de facto protégé jumped back out of the doorway at the sight of a manikin holding a shotgun in their direction. The legionary turned his head and spoke in the common tongue of those outside of the Legion itself, "Coward." The junior legionary faced away, unwilling to challenge his accuser. As he faced the interior of what was barely more than a shed, the sounds of rattling cans focused his mind. He drew his machete in one swift, practiced motion, and slowly paced inside.

A voice filled the air around him, deep yet hollow and metallic. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Leave my domain brigands! You incur my wrath at your own peril! Take one step more and the death-field will melt your brains!"

The legionary stood with his machete raised, high and behind his head, ready to strike. His eyebrow rose in disbelief, and he challenged the apparent spirit. "Face me charlatan!" A bushy, grey beard emerged under a shaggy cloak of coyote fur from behind a gap in the cinderblocks.

The strange man raised a tiny, folding pocket knife, and dared the legionaries to do him battle. "Ole Sticky is angered! Heed my warning, lest it be the last words you hear!"

The Legion recruit grinned, the tension leaving his body. "Your funeral, old man." As he took a step forward, preparing to lunge and claim the head from the useless elderly man's shoulders, he heard a crackling sizzle behind him. He turned with his machete bared before him, just incase, and was blinded by a neon-green glow cascading around the entire body of his fellow servant of Mars. There was no other sound, no opportunity for a curse or scream, as the man's entire being melted into a steaming pile of eerie, glowing sludge.

He turned his head in shock and saw the aged visage of a lunatic, a man with neither fear nor hatred in his eyes, and a barely threatening knife in his hands. "Don't say I didn't warn you about the death-field, hoodlum. Get out of town now, and I might not turn you into a newt! There's no getting better from that."

The legionary's eyes darted around as he hesitated, thought about what was happening, and decided not to risk it. He sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him out of the shack, past an undead apparition in dark robes. Strobing flashes erupted in the corners of his vision, yet on he ran into the desert, away from the dinosaur, the mad sorcerer, his dying comrades, and the undead killing them with the fire of the Gods.

* * *

Outtakes: A voice spoke into Boone's headset, "Remember not to look in Keene's direction. He's still a little paranoid, and not too KEEN on being stared at."


	4. Chapter 4: Long Shadows

AN: Thank you ScrimshawPen, Alexeij, BJSC, FractiousDay, & Amateur Sketch for the reviews! I've standardized the text in this chapter: italics = sarcasm, 'italics' = thinking, and underlines . . . Underlines are for whatever the heck I feel like underlining.

* * *

A radio crackled next to him, muffled and incoherent. Massive metal gates swung open half a mile away through his high-powered scope. It was finally time. His morning had begun early, or rather, late the night before. The "supply" drops. The last-minute coordination, giving orders to addicts that lacked braincells and lived like the lowest of animals. The long wait, straining his eyes and neck as he watched for the inevitable to start, for everything to finally come to fruition at last. Faded olive green and the ruddy brown of rust filled his presently Polyphemical vision.

A convoy of atomic-powered flatbed trucks rolled out from the high walls, filled past capacity with troops. The tops of rows of helmets filed by past his field of view through the enhanced light of his lens. As they rounded the cracked road at the corner of the two hundred year-old walls, his patience turned to a primal eagerness. From out of a small coyote-hide bag, lined throughout the inside with the very same fur, he retrieved a wireless remote detonator. The plexiglass cap opened and his thumb depressed the big, shiny, red button, wasting no time in condemning human life to death. The fast departing motor column disappeared into a rapidly expanding cloud of smoke, dirt, dust, and flame. He watched the explosions carry the heavy steel frames wholly into the air before his attention returned to the gates of the repurposed fortress.

The savages were already rushing out of the ruins nearest to the walls, wasting no time in serving their purpose. A minuscule flash, barely visible in the light of dawn, drew his attention, along with the accompanying pulpification of a worthless junkie's head. At last, their damned sniper had revealed himself. An inhalation, a bracing of the stock firmly against his shoulder, an exhale, and a brief squeeze of the trigger propelled a full-metal jacket .30-06 round through the "bullet-proof" armor plating of a high-tech gasmask, into the brain and skull of one of the NCR's very finest. The fallen corpse's third-generation advanced combat helmet remained propped up atop the "Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, overlooking the surge of chem-addled lunatics that were rushing the fortified base's entrance.

The frumentarius observed their suicidal charge with analytical and disdainful detachment, watching them fire blindly with their guns raised high, sprint towards their perceived victims to rip them apart with crude weapons, or simply howl like the mad degenerates that they were. The guard towers were ablaze with muzzle flashes bursting from LMGs, MMGs, ARs, DMRs, and hunting rifles. Few of the deranged attackers carried the DEWs that had given them a decisive edge in the past several years; their suppliers were no longer in town, and with them the entire deal for repairs, cheap ammo, etc.

The NCR were taking losses nonetheless, losing their heads as the gate remained ajar just so, despite it only being enough for the Fiends to funnel into a secondary killzone. The sandbag perimeter's mounted guns made short work of most; he could see the shadows of dying figures intermittently cast on the open inner door, but they kept coming, slipping past with luck and unnatural twitching. The agent of Caesar's will wasn't concerned with how many would die, however. He waited patiently for the virtueless raiders to be routed, and for the heavy troopers to emerge through the gates, repulsing them with jets of charring, unquenchable flames.

He emptied his magazine into the slowly marching vanguard, but not with the intent to kill; his high-powered rifle drilled holes through the seams of their armor and exposed limbs, tearing chunks out of inner thighs and armpits. They could burn as many berserk junkies as they pleased, so long as they didn't survive the battle. He absentmindedly gathered the spent brass before reloading his rifle.

A shifting ladder of hazy, brown smoke emerged high in the sky from within the compound, within the concourse itself, and he knew that one way or another, he had served his purpose. If the base fell, he would help the dissolute taking it "celebrate." If it remained in the profligates' hands, he had already ensured that it would fall all too easily. A smirk ruffled the fabrics of the wrappings over his face.

He lingered for a moment, content in the knowledge that both the historically illiterate profligates and the pitiful gang of raiders would be no more in mere days, if not hours. They were both less worthy of existence than even the most inbred, superstitious of tribes: lacking any faith, identity, dignity, virtue, strength, or creed. Even without the Legion's prodding, both were destined to shatter apart in the span of years into bickering, petulant splinters. He rose bodily from his prone position atop the ruined fourth-floor of a shattered building's facade, slung his rifle onto his back, packed up his portable radio, grabbed a satchel full of unmarked, filled syringes, and carefully made his way down to the dirt-covered pavement. He had quite a ways to walk ahead of him, through long shadows and sparse sunlight.

* * *

A dapper, mustachioed sort sat on plush furniture and seethed. His temper festered due to a test of his patience, one meant clearly as a form of subtle disrespect. The paintings on the walls were cheap, tasteless, gaudy things, barely above abstract paint splatters made by backwards tribals and trained pre-war circus animals. About half of them depicted scantily clad or simply naked women, none of whom were painted with beauty or elegance in mind. The incessant chatter of patrons below never left his ears, and his distaste for the environment was clear on his face.

At last, a sleazy-looking, self-important, puffed-up thug strode out of the office down the hall, approaching him with a smugness written by the curling corners of his lips. "Mr. Cachino will see you now."

Annoyance flashed in the gentleman's cold eyes as he made to stand, before it was replaced with practiced civility. The fabric of the sofa made the slightest sound as he moved, and then he was on his feet, standing tall with a posture perfectly straight and proud. A few muffled steps on the thick carpeting brought him to the door behind the nameless goon, and he walked in with all the arrogance of a man slighted by his lessors.

The office of the Omertás' head honcho, Don Cachino, was ostentatiously decorated with "artwork" much the same as in the halls. His desk was covered in manilla folders, pre-war and NCR-grown cigar boxes, and an assortment of liquor. The drawers no doubt were filled with chems, blackmail files, and handguns. A working telephone sat to one side, wired to every desk and bar in the casino for dealing with complaints, unruly customers, and party favor shortages in a timely fashion.

The mafioso greeted him with a snide, derisive tone. "Thank you for your patience, sir. Feel free to have a seat." A nerve pulsed near the man's temple, but he said nothing yet, and made no motion to sit. The slime-ball continued, "Would you like a smoke, a drink, maybe blow off some steam upstairs?" More annoying slights. Cachino knew fully well that he had no interest in such frivolities. The slimy bastard prompted him once more, "On the house, of course." A shit-eating grin broke out across the murderous whoremonger's face.

"I'm quite alright, _thank you_."

"Alright, then. Allow me to get down to business. The cleaners have already been sent out, just like we agreed. My 'security' detail are getting ready downstairs, where we have the documents prepared regarding our agreement, and a gift ready for you. If you'll follow me, we can have this business wrapped up shortly."

Hazel irises shifted, taking in the veneer of polite subservience the grease-ball was keeping up. "Very well, Mr. Cachino. Let us be done with this."

The obnoxiously leisure-like stroll that the mobster's meat-headed guard took them on led through winding corridors, past writhing naked bodies shameless or otherwise, and by drunken slobs that failed to pay their respects and were brusquely shoved out of the way. A locked steel door swung open and led them down yet another set of steps, before finally they reached a darkened opening and the second goon, one that had joined their retinue unnoticed behind him and in-front of Cachino, jostled him forward impatiently.

The darkness remained; he couldn't see his finely cobbled leather dress shoes, much less anything else beyond the light filling the doorway. Alarms went off in his mind, but far too late. His sense of importance, of power, had led to a monumental misjudgment of safety, a folly of pure hubris. Despite the feeling of impending disaster, his voice remained, calm, authoritative, smooth. "What is the meaning of this gentlemen? I take it you've lost power from the dam?"

An unseen door slammed into its frame, snuffing out the cascade of light from above. That's when he noticed the stench. A lightbulb blinked, buzzed, and came to life on the ceiling, illuminating a circle of broad-shouldered henchmen hefting cattle-prods. The debonaire fellow stared at the neat line of pinstripe-suited bodies sprawled in-front of several wooden chairs. A desk sat unused across from them, as if they had failed the most important job interview of their lives. Cachino's slimy grin captured his attention next, and the pimp spoke up with malicious glee. "It's really quite simple. These men were traitors. Upstarts and the old timers loyal to dead men. If the Legion takes the city, they'll be the ones that killed you while they were trying to whack me. If not, they'll be the fools that sided with you over the rest of us." The circle of well-dressed thugs closed even tighter.

He dropped the dapper facade, ditching all the faux civility he had mustered to deal with these dissolutes. "Caesar will have you all crucified and burned for this. Your betrayal will not go unanswered." He inched his hand lower, towards the discreet pistol and knife that were secreted away in his formal attire.

"You just aren't getting the picture, are you? We would _never_ betray the _almighty_ Caesar, or House, capiche?"

His grip tightened around the concealed revolver, and he began to lurch forward with murderous intent. Behind him, a tiny .22LR bullet cruised down the barrel of an old Ruger. It pierced the hollow behind the frumentarius' ear, rattling around the inside of his skull for a few brief milliseconds. Blood leaked out of the neat hole, running down the back of his ear to make a small mess on the floor.

"Clean this shit up, boys. Then man the floor. Busy day ahead of us."

* * *

Ranger Ghost lay as still and pale as her namesake on her post atop the bar and barracks. The reports had just come in to her from Deputy Chief Jackson and Major Knight; this would be the day that the NCR won or lost the Mojave. Already a startled caravan had came through, understandably yet overly paranoid, looking over their shoulders the whole way up the road. So much for secure comms. After today, maybe she would put in for some leave. Rangers were volunteers after all, and she had served her country without a break for years now. She mulled it over; New Arroyo was beautiful this time of year, and she wouldn't bake in the sun, as she did her best to avoid on this long-term assignment.

A solitary traveler caught her eye through binoculars, barely visible in the dim light of dawn. He slowly weaved in and out of the wrecked metal carcasses as he went, trudging methodically up the slope of the road. A loner looking to survive the imminent storm, by the looks of him. Cowled and dressed in layered, ragged coats. Ghost relaxed her shoulders and took a sip from her canteen. The indignant mooing of a pack brahmin being prodded to its feet broke the silence of the morning. The solitary traveler came and went past the two god-awful scrap statues. To her relief, the ranger's nightlong vigil was finally just-about at its end. She caught herself dozing off and shot up into standing at full height, her stiff joints strained in protest. Back and forth, she worked her neck, feeling relief come along with the sickening sounds of her bones cracking.

A shout came from below, a panicked Sergeant Lee from the sound of it, and she pivoted, turning her rifle towards the dirt. An earth-shattering noise left her ears deaf and ringing as she suddenly became acquainted with the ground through the shattering concrete of her perch. Blood clouded her vision; her shades were cracked and snapped in half. Her hat, surprisingly enough, was still strapped to her head. Her grip on the Gun Runners-made rifle had never faltered, and she rose with it in hand, ignoring the pain all throughout her body.

Through her one clear eye she saw Lee was slumped against a gate booth, bleeding from his leg and through his beard from the looks of it. He pointed when she gazed his way, directing her muddled aim at a man in the distance, tossing handfuls of something behind him as he fled through the gates. The first muted shot went wide, causing the figure to pick up the pace beyond his prior sprint. The second caused a noticeable stagger, and the third brought him down, kicking up dust.

Jackson ran from around the back of the outpost's office, having apparently hopped out of his window, and rolled the bomber over with his boot. Ghost limped over to the wounded sergeant's side, but it was already too late. Whether he had succumbed to blood loss already or asphyxiation, she couldn't say. Jackson jogged over, thankfully not waiting for her to meet him halfway, and spoke up. "Bastard was dropping caltrops. Tried to arm a mine too. Did you see him plant the bomb?" He kneeled down and checked the sergeant for a pulse.

She nodded her head, "no," and glanced over to the panicked caravaners in the brahmin pens. Ghost shouted to hear her own voice, "Lee must have caught him in the act."

"Damned shame." He stood up and looked her over from behind his pristine aviators, inaudibly mouthing, "Can you walk?"

' _I just survived half a building falling out from under me in an explosion, so jee, I don't know_.' "I'm not dead yet, chief."

"Best go survey the path for traps, then. Bastard was either an ex-con anarchist or a frumentarii zealot."

' _So much for getting some rest_.'

* * *

A suffocating rag of smoke choked her windpipe and stung her eyes as she emerged from unconsciousness, back to the world of the living. Jumbled thoughts struggled for supremacy in her clouded mind before she realized where she was. The truck's siderails were digging into her back despite the armor, and flames licked at the ground around her in sparse patches. Someone was crying, sobbing for help. Another voice was barely audible, gasping for air and gulping down nothing but thick haze.

Her LT came into view, Romanowski, dragging himself through the dirt with one arm. He rolled onto his back facing her, revealing the bleeding stump on his other side. Somehow, through the pain and smoke, he called out to her. "Ortega! . . . Draw your gun. Get moving. . . The farms. . . Fiends." He trailed off as his eyes rolled up into his skull as if he was looking back towards the western ruins.

Savage war-cries and demented laughter reached her ears. She looked down for the first time and saw that her body was intact. A cut had drawn blood along her thigh, but other than that, she was fine. With one swift motion, a pistol was in her hand. Dozens of Fiends were running down the road as fast as their scab, leather, and bone covered legs could carry them, nearing the other wrecked NCRA trucks. A green star flew past her field of vision and she heard renewed screaming. Gunfire pelted the lunatics from the walls behind her, but they didn't stop for a single moment. Some half-heartedly fired back as they ran, others ignored the pain of bullets sinking into their bodies, chems numbing them to anything but their singleminded, psychotic impulses.

A corporal she recognized from the sharecropper farms ran up to intercept them with a serrated combat knife, stopping just short as a ripper chewed through his back on the tip of a pool cue. Horrible laughter filled her ears. The expression of pure glee that only a lunatic could experience. She made to stand, clutching the truck's railing above her head with one hand and pointing her pea-shooter with the other. She counted out twelve shots and was rewarded with two raiders stopped dead in their tracks, while another two barely flinched.

They were on the other survivors now, beating, shooting, stomping, stabbing, and tearing away clothes from the wounded. The trooper backpedalled away from their advance as her fellow conscripts abandoned their injured comrades and limped or crawled away through the dust. A bullet snapped past her along the ground, followed by another tearing through her ankle. The pain blossomed out even more intensely as she landed on her side, coughing after the air that had left her lungs. A pair of human skulls bounced and swayed as they neared her, strung to a grotesque belt of skin. Bloodshot eyes loomed over her above a jagged, uneven, scabrous attempt at a beard.

Thoughts raced through her mind. ' _No, no, no, not like this! This can't be it_.' She thought about her little brothers crying when her old abuela got the news she had died in the Mojave. Tears formed and wasted no time in streaming down her face to meet the cool sand below her cheek. The looming raider reaked like vinegar, vomit, and shit as he leaned down over her. Then, she thought about coming home a cripple, an invalid, a shell of her former self. She raised the pistol to her head, and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Private Jack Smith looked up from Andrews' paling face and saw the Sergeant organizing the survivors of the platoon. Above, the sniper that had saved them was already engaging the Legion on the far side of the canyon. Hernandez was still leaning against the stone, wide-eyed and grimacing, with an amateur medic wrapping up his bleeding nub. Explosions sounded off in the distance on the other side of the dam.

He looked down and gripped his friend's blood-soaked wrist as two troopers he didn't recognize ran over with more water and makeshift bandages. "Stay with me, man. The worst is over."

Andrews wasn't looking back at him so much as past him. "Y-yeah. I'm ok."

Smith gave him a forced smile that never reached his eyes. Matthews' renewed shouting brought his attention to the road to Boulder City. The legionaries the ranger had warned them about were charging across the cracked pavement, sending the rest of his platoon scrambling for cover once more behind the pitiful sandbag defenses. He realized with numb clarity that Andrews' pulse had stopped beneath his bloody fingers.


End file.
